This Is Not A Keynote!

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Spoiler alert! There are some juicy reveals ahead, but you should resist the temptation to scroll down to the bottom to see them. Instead, bask in the warm fuzziness of anticipation and savor the mind-blowing knowledge that will soon encapsulate every moment of your waking hours with untethered speculation about what the future holds. That’s right—you’re about to get a taste of what’s to come. But it’s only a taste. This is not a keynote.

Since the early years of Lock & Load, we’ve made a tradition of spilling the beans on our upcoming projects during the con, which usually landed in June and made for a great kickoff to our summer convention circuit. COVID, however, made mincemeat of said tradition, and with the challenges of an ongoing pandemic, overseas manufacturing and shipping delays, and an ever-shifting convention schedule, we’re not at a stage in the development of our various projects to make a full-blown presentation for upcoming releases. In some cases, such as Warcaster, we’re very close to the next Kickstarter campaign and don’t want to spoil everything that we’ll be revealing when it launches, and in other cases, like WARMACHINE and HORDES, the big developments are so far out that we don’t have enough to show off to make for a satisfying presentation yet. Still, we know enquiring minds want to know what’s coming down the pike, so we’re going to give a preview of things to come and then will follow up later in the year with something resembling the multi-media hype-train you’ve come to expect from us. Hopefully, these morsels will satisfy your collective appetite for advance intel for at least a few months. At the very least, you know you’ll have even more to look forward to.

Having just finished up a Kickstarter for the next wave of releases that will ship early this coming winter, we have the least to show or say about Riot Quest. But…a new season has been in development for a while, and we also have an expansion planned for next year called Riot Quest: Story Mode, which will inject a narrative component into gameplay while exponentially multiplying the wacky hijinks between characters. Have you ever imagined Boomhowler as the love interest in a story? Just wait for it!

We have some really amazing announcements coming for Monsterpocalypse—too big to fit in this space, in fact. But next year is going to be huge for the king of kaiju games. We’ll be starting the year off with a pair of new Factions inspired by ancient Aztec mythology and designed by one of the most prominent members of the Monsterpocalypse community, Emanuel Class, who many of you know from his Field of Fire podcast as well as many guest Insiders and other collaborations with Privateer.

Following in the destructive wake of the two new Factions will come Megaton Mashup II: King of the Monsterpocalypse…or Megaton Mashup II: King of the Khans. We’re still trying to decide. (My personal favorite, Megaton Mashup II: Electric Boogaloo, was summarily rejected. But how can I help myself? I’m a shameless product of the ’80s.) Whatever it’s called, you already know it’s going to feature evolved versions of the final winners in our Monster March Madness event. But soon you’ll know them in their Apex Monster forms: Magma Khan and Mega Cyber Khan!

On top of all that, we’ll be introducing a new Organized Play format that allows you to use four monsters in a game, and believe it or not, is even more destructive!

YEP! It’s real!

Did someone say “Monsterpocalypso-nom-nom-nom-icon”? (Really, have you even tried to say it?) Well, whether you want to risk spraining your tongue or you just want to call it the MonPoc Monsternomicon, if you think a book detailing the monsters of Monsterpocalypse with 5th Edition rules sounds like the best thing ever, so do we! And you thought we were just joking around…

We’re right around the corner from the next Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika Kickstarter project that will introduce Cadres into the game, which are bands of related units that, when taken in your battle force, unlock an exciting and powerful centerpiece model. The Cadres are some of the wildest things we’ve done for Warcaster yet, and each one is bristling with character and flavor that expands the themes found in each of the four Factions.

In addition to the Cadres, we’ll be seeing some exciting new heroes and solos, and we have a quartet of new nefarious Wild Cards available as premium rewards for backing the project. But what’s got us most excited right now is The Thousand Worlds sourcebook that we’ll be offering alongside the new Cadres. The book will collect all of the existing Warcaster lore into one place while diving deep into each Faction and the history of the Hyperuranion. The Thousand Worlds has also given us an opportunity to work with one of our favorite collaborators, Aeryn Rudel, who is contributing ten fantastic stories to the book that will truly flesh out this exciting new setting.

Ranger Outrider

Eternal Metator & Antecessor Eternal

Regulator Reeve

Nekosphynx

 

One of the most exciting things to happen at Privateer this year was the relaunch of the Iron Kingdoms RPG, Kickstarted for the wildly popular 5E ruleset. While we’re awaiting production on the first three books in the line, RPG Development Manager Matt Goetz has been charting a course for all the mysterious and dangerous places we’ll be exploring in the Iron Kingdoms. Our next wave of books will head deep into the wild places of the Iron Kingdoms, including mist-shrouded Ios, which has been harrowingly transformed in the wake of the Claiming. We’ll also be introducing Shaman and Warlock character classes along with several non-human races and, of course, Warbeasts!

In addition to the hefty expansions above, we’ve got a raft of digital supplements on the way, starting this summer. From sub-classes to new adventures, we’ll be exploring every nook and cranny of the IK. And then later next year, we’re going to be going to a dark place…the Nightmare Empire itself!

With CID, it’s hard to keep the lid on anything for WARMACHINE & HORDES. You already know about the Guardian of Souls and Harvester of Souls colossals. These new Black Anchor Heavy Industries kits will be available to order in July and ready to annihilate the life essence of your opponents by August.

Harvester of Souls

Guardian of Souls

Additionally, while celebrating the 15-year anniversary of HORDES, we’ll be offering the first-ever zero-level warlocks…because sometimes we like to do things backwards and offer the youngest versions of characters long after they have been established as older and more experienced personalities in the setting.

A hallmark of our annual summer update (a.k.a. the Keynote) has been the announcement of the next Faction that will join the battles of WARMACHINE & HORDES. It’s an exciting event that provokes rampant speculation about rules, often-times concluding that the new Faction is clearly broken, even though all we’ve shown is some concept art and a few lines about what they can do on the tabletop. This year, as I mentioned above, we aren’t working quite as far ahead, but there’s a new Faction that will be storming onto the tabletop next year all the same. It’s too early to show anything, as we’re just getting into their development, but it’s not too early to tell, and I know that when people are asking when we’re going to do a keynote, what they’re really asking is what new Faction is coming to WARMACHINE & HORDES. I’ve been looking forward to exploring this cornerstone of Iron Kingdoms history for a long time, and we’ll have a lot more to show and tell later in the year.

So, with all these exciting things coming to your favorite games, make sure you’ve signed up for our mailing list and checked off the items you want to receive updates for. We don’t want you to miss a single mind-blowing announcement!

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Matt Wilson
Chief Creative Officer

I knew you were just going to scroll to the bottom…

Community, Company, HORDES, Insider, Iron Kingdoms, Monsterpocalypse, News, Requiem, Riot Quest, Thank You, Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika, WARMACHINE, Web Extra
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